Plans underway for All-Night Grad Party aboard SS Freedom II

For the second straight year, high school seniors in the town of Norwell will take to the high seas this spring as they celebrate their high school graduations.

Next Saturday (June 9), hours after the last diploma is handed out in the Norwell High commencement ceremony, the school’s newest crop of graduates will gather one last time to take part in the annual All-night Grad Party, sponsored by the Norwell High PTO.

Departing 18 South Street, the students will travel to Boston’s Rowe’s Wharf, where they’ll board the SS Freedom II charter yacht for a night of fun, food, dancing, dining and nostalgia.

Matt Dunning

Next Saturday (June 9), hours after the last diploma is handed out in the Norwell High commencement ceremony, the school’s newest crop of graduates will gather one last time to take part in the annual All-night Grad Party, sponsored by the Norwell High PTO.

Departing 18 South Street, the students will travel to Boston’s Rowe’s Wharf, where they’ll board the SS Freedom II charter yacht for a night of fun, food, dancing, dining and nostalgia.

Donna Cunio, one of the event’s organizers, said she expects the students will like what they find when they board the boat.

“It was a blast last year,” Cunio said. “The kids loved it. They said they had such a good time being out on [Boston] Harbor.”

Cunio, a pastor at both the Old South Church in Boston and the Union Mission Chapel in Norwell, said she conducts several weddings a year aboard the Freedom II, which can be chartered to provide a picturesque backdrop for virtually any sort of gathering.

It’s very cool,” she said. “It’s just something else to be out there on the harbor at night, especially after midnight. It’s something you never forget.”

According to Cunio, participating students are asked to have their parents drop them off — Cunio insists that the students not drive themselves to the school prior to departure — at the high school at 11 p.m. Saturday. From there, they’ll be transported by bus to the Boston Harbor Hotel at Rowe’s Wharf. Once aboard the ship, the seniors can enjoy any number of the games, activities and food the PTO has prepared for them, as they quite literally set sail into the next stage of their young adult lives.

“We have all kinds of stuff lined up for them,” Cunio said. “We’ve got a chicken barbeque, all kinds of snacks, a casino event with bingo, Texas Hold ’em and black jack, and we’ve got two spiritual readers scheduled. It should be a lot of fun. We just have to hope for good weather.”

Cunio said the event was made possible largely by donations from parents in town, and not just the parents of seniors. Parents of all ages of high school students gave what they could, Cunio said, including prizes, supplies and funding. Cunio said she also received donations from the three other public school PTOs in town.

“I thought that was really very nice of them,” Cunio said, “because they’re not required to do that.”

The students are scheduled to return to the high school at approximately 3 a.m. on Sunday morning, following the party. Again, Cunio asks the students to arrange to be picked up, rather than drive themselves.

For more information about the event, call Donna Cunio at (781) 659-7667. Donations are more than welcome for this event.